


Those Left Behind

by Velvedere



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Grief, Lots of Crying, M/M, Sad, Shiro theories, Speculation, and crying, in which Keith vents all my feels about season two by yelling at things, lion swapping, post season two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-28 00:57:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10060343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velvedere/pseuds/Velvedere
Summary: Just another take on some stuff that happens after season two...





	1. Chapter 1

It’s quiet.

The only sound is the barely-there hum of the castle ship around them. A sound they’ve all grown so accustomed to they don’t hear it anymore.

Except when it was absolutely silent.

Except in times like these. When all other sounds fell away.

Nothing moves in the cockpit. They all just stare.

They stare at the empty pilot’s chair. The dark console. The bayard still in its plug-in.

“He’s gone,” someone says. Keith doesn’t know who. Maybe it was Lance.

Maybe it was him?

It breaks the spell of silence holding them. Voicing out loud what none of them want to hear, or believe.

Shiro is gone.

Shiro is…gone…

Shiro…is…

_“No!”_

Keith is first to launch himself forward, shoving past the pilot’s chair and slamming his hands onto the console.

“Check for hull breaches!” he barks. “See if any of the escape pods have launched! Is the ground speeder still docked?”

His mind races through the possibilities. He already knows the hull hasn’t been breached. Despite the battle they’ve just been through, the black lion is intact. The interior and cockpit aren’t big enough that they could have overlooked Shiro on their way inside. There just wasn’t room.

“…Keith?”

Was Shiro hiding? Under the floor panels maybe. A hot wave of rage burns over Keith’s skin at the idea that Shiro would do something so childish at a time like this. This wasn’t any time to try and lighten the mood.

“Keith.”

Did he eject? Did the lion spit him out? Keith’s hands race over the console to pull up ship logs and activation codes, anger chilling into a cold fear that they’d somehow left Shiro floating out in space, far behind them on the other side of a wormhole. His eyes desperately scan the lines of code that flit across the screen, only half reading them.

It was possible. Wasn’t it? Shiro would have contacted them if he was in trouble. Maybe his communication array was damaged in the battle with Zarkon? Maybe he can’t contact them. Maybe they’d just left him there after retrieving his lion and he would have watched them wormhole away they would have to go back and get him but that’s still a better solution than Shiro just disappearing entirely that isn’t possible it can’t be possible there is just no way—

“Keith!”

Lance’s hand comes down hard on his shoulder. He pulls Keith back from the console, and Keith looks up at him in surprise.

He’d forgotten the others were there.

“Keith – buddy, my man – you need to calm. Down.”

“We have to find Shiro,” Keith says, with an automatic emphasis that doesn’t require conscious thought. “He’s got be somewhere!”

“Yeah, and we’ll find him! But you need to quit muttering to yourself like that. You’re upsetting Pidge!”

Pidge raises an eyebrow where she stands behind them.

Keith snarls and shoves Lance away with both hands, knocking him back into Hunk.

“People don’t just disappear! They _can’t!_ He can’t be gone!”

“Okay! Okay, everybody,” says Hunk, catching Lance in one hand and making calming gestures with the other. “Everybody just take a deeeeep breath…”

They search and run diagnostics for over an hour. Not a single piece of the black lion or its code is overlooked. Keith even takes the red lion out to retrace their steps, picking off the few Galra ships left functional among the debris field.

But they don’t find anything.

There’s nothing to be found.

*****

Keith never cried so hard in his life.

*****

They don’t end up going back to Earth.

It gets discussed. Lance and Hunk both want to go. Pidge wants to stay and keep up her search for her family. Allura and Coran start making plans for rebuilding and continue to seek out more allies. There’s still a lot of work to be done to dismantle the Galra Empire entirely.

And Keith…

It’s hard for Keith to have an opinion about anything.

Then the Galra attacks start up again. That puts an end to the debate.

Just because Zarkon was taken out – they’re not even certain he’s dead for sure – doesn’t mean there weren’t entire fleets of Galra ships still out there with their own commanders, each one quick to try and fill the power vacuum left in Zarkon’s absence.

And there was still Haggar. Still sending out her monsters.

Discussions turn from heading back to Earth to an entirely different matter.

*****

“You do it.”

“What? Me?” Allura’s eyes go wide and she touches a hand to her chest, startling one of the mice on her shoulder. “I…I couldn’t…!”

Keith looks her way with a sidelong glance, unimpressed.

“It takes a born leader, right?” he says, reciting her words from the day they first met. “Someone people will follow? Who’s in control at all times?” He shrugs and leans back against the support pillar, folding his arms over his chest. “I think you qualify.”

“Yeah,” says Lance, smirking. “Let’s face it, that is definitely not Keith.”

Keith doesn’t argue. He doesn’t even look up while Allura continues to flounder.

“But…I’ve never been a pilot! Let alone—!”

“Neither were Hunk and me,” Pidge points out. “But we got the hang of it.”

“Allura, you pilot the whole castle,” says Hunk. “And your dad was a paladin too, right?”

Allura blinks again, looking over them one at a time, startled.

“How…how did you know that?” Her look towards Hunk turns into a suspicious frown. “I don’t believe I ever told you that about my father.”

“You didn’t.” Hunk grins. “Yellow did.”

“But…Keith has already piloted the black lion once before! Haven’t you?”

“Once,” says Keith. “And only for a little while. Shiro was in trouble, and…it was hard.” He turns his eyes away, glaring at a random spot on the wall.

He didn’t like remembering that feeling.

“Besides, I’m pretty used to Red at this point.”

Allura’s cheeks blush a darker hue as she bows her head, touching one hand to her lips in thought. She closes her eyes for a moment.

Then she smiles.

“I must admit, I have always dreamed of piloting one of the Voltron lions. Ever since my father built them…” She opens her eyes again and looks directly at Keith. A look of intense severity. “Are you sure?”

Keith returns her look, level and even, and nods his head.

Allura lights up in a way he hasn’t seen from her in a long time.

Coran chooses that exact moment to butt in.

“Well, since no one is asking MY opinion about this, I’ll state it for the record: I’m against this in every way, shape, and form! We are shot at enough as it is with the Princess safely inside the castle. Having her pilot Voltron – especially the head! – puts her even more directly in harm’s way! As her advisor AND protector I cannot stand by and allow—!”

Allura puts her arms around him, silencing him with a gentle hug.

“Oh, Coran,” she says sweetly, smiling in that especially princess-like way. “You always have my best interests at heart.”

Then she looks up at him with a glint in her eye that makes Coran shrink a little.

“But I’m going to do this, and you are not going to stop me.”

*****

They run a few missions with Allura in the black lion.

Nobody dies, so Keith counts that as a win.

Getting the five of them in sync is awkward at first. Clunky at best. Everyone is supportive of everyone else, positive-minded and full of praise, and absolutely no one brings up the vague sense of unease they all feel going into battle for the first time, following Allura’s orders to form Voltron.

Something…just isn’t right.

It’s not Allura. She’s a perfectly capable leader. It’s not Keith, shouting instructions from Voltron’s right hand in those moments when she’s on the verge of losing confidence. It’s not Hunk’s screaming or Pidge spouting science or Lance wanting to kick something. It’s not any one thing.

It just feels…off. All of it.

Keith doesn’t say anything, already deciding the blame lies on the Shiro-shaped hole in his heart.

But he’s not the only one who notices.

*****

They’re in orbit around a planet, gently drifting, watching the sun rise over a distant glow of atmosphere through one of the ship’s wall-sized viewscreens.

Allura sits with her weight forward, knees pressed tightly together, hands clenched where they rest on top of them.

“I…I thought I could do it,” she says, a broken mumble. Eyes downcast. “I thought…”

“You did do it.” Keith puts an arm around her shoulders. There to meet her eyes when she lifts them, the strange way they catch and reflect the light made even more crystalline with her tears. “You did more than anyone could have asked for.”

“Then why does it feel wrong?” She grasps his hand, holding it tight so hers doesn’t tremble. “It’s not like I imagined at all…”

Keith looks down at their hands. Gently brushes a thumb across the back of hers.

“It’s not you,” he says. Barely a mumble. “It’s not you. It’s…the lions choose their paladins, right?”

Allura looks up.

“Well, yes…but—”

“I think maybe the black lion just…chose someone else.”

Keith keeps his eyes down on their hands. His gaze drops further to the floor.

Allura’s eyes follow him.

“It isn’t easy, is it?” she says, a half-hearted attempt at a laugh in her voice. “Having to follow the example he set. Always wondering, what would he do? What would he say?”

“Constantly being compared,” Keith mumbles. “Other people expecting to be inspired.” He tries for a laugh himself, and fails. Miserably. “He made it look so easy.”

Allura links their fingers. She squeezes his hand, kindness and reassurance and compassion there in her touch.

“It’s not what either of us want, is it?”

Keith shakes his head.

“No.”

All of them just wanted Shiro back.

*****

Red is…surprisingly okay with the change.

Keith stands in front of her, his hand reaching out to rest on one of her foreclaws.

“It…might only be temporary,” he says, still uncertain about the whole thing.

He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like _any_ of it.

“You’re still my best girl, Red.”

There’s no outward response, but Keith can…feel…something like acknowledgement. A nudge in his thoughts, the way a mother cat might nuzzle one of her young. A brush and lick of affection before sending them off into the world.

It isn’t what Keith wants. He doesn’t want to be in charge. He doesn’t want the constant stream of questions – what would Shiro do? what would Shiro say? – and the eyes turned up at him looking for an answer. A solution. Inspiration.

Shiro had said he thought Keith could do it, but…

Well.

Shiro wasn’t right about everything.

 _Except when he was,_ his thoughts supply for him.

He’d been right about Ulaz. About who they could or couldn’t trust. He’d been right about Voltron from the start and never made a decision that led them astray. Not that Keith could remember.

(Maybe he had. Keith was a little biased on the matter.)

But he wasn’t Shiro. He would never be Shiro.

Keith sighs, bowing his head. Thanking Red for a silent moment before he pulls his hand back and turns away from her.

He puts on his helmet, and strides toward the black lion.

Broken, but determined.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time Keith started seeing Shiro was out on a mission.

It was the usual scenario: surrounded on all sides, a seemingly undefeatable monster, getting their rear ends handed to them until they figured out a weakness. Allura shouted swear words in the heat of the moment, making the drill instructors back at the Garrison seem tame, and Lance wanted to kick something.

Hunk screamed a lot.

Pidge spouted science.

Keith grit his teeth and did his best to keep his temper under control, when all he really wanted to do was pounce on that robeast and pound it into the dust with Voltron’s fists until there was nothing left but puddles of oil.

A flicker of movement to the side caught his attention. Keith snapped his glare to the left, and – for less than a full second – thought he saw a vague outline in the interior of the cockpit.

“…Shiro?” he breathed, forgetting his comm was live.

“What’d you say, Ke—gyaaaaaah!” Hunk lurched his lion to one side, narrowly missing getting scorched by an energy blast.

Keith shook his head and refocused, his attention back on the fight.

*****

The second time it happened, Keith heard his voice too.

It was another crucial moment. Another decisive battle. Voltron had been hit with an energy drain and they spiraled out of control through space, unable to stop or even turn themselves around.

All part of the enemies’ plan, as they were headed right for an energy net that would tangle them up enough to be safely delivered to whoever was paying a bunch of space pirates to capture them.

No energy also meant the gyroscopic counterbalances were down. All of them could feel their lunches about to make a round trip.

Keith’s mind raced. No power meant no thrusters. No shield. No sword. He didn’t know what to do. Even spreading themselves out wouldn’t slow them down. There was no friction in space. Comms were still up so he could still hear his teammates screaming and if he didn’t think of something soon—

“Keith.”

Keith blinked. Looked up from where he held a death grip on the black lion’s controls so he didn’t go bouncing around the cockpit. (These things really should have safety harnesses.)

“Huh?”

There it was again. A flicker of Shiro, still in his paladin armor.

Keith’s eyes snapped to the side and stared at him in a blend of awe and rage, watching in dumb silence as Shiro indicated the bayard’s plug-in.

The bayard was already there, but Shiro made a gesture. Turning his hand clockwise.

Keith didn’t know what good it would do without power, but he did it anyway, reaching for the bayard and his connection with the black lion.

Shiro put his hand on the control panel.

The entire cockpit lit up in purple.

And Voltron…teleported? Not quite a wormhole the way the castle did, but the whole of it flickered, became briefly transparent. Keith’s eyes were wide as he looked up and around, seeing a bright inversion of space and stars in every direction, before they phased right through the energy net, resolidifying on the other side.

Shiro smiled down at Keith, then disappeared.

Power came back on.

They took the pirates down.

*****

The third time didn’t happen in combat.

They were in the hangar bay inside the castle. Keith stood outside the black lion, helmet tucked under his arm, yelling at a Galra twice his size.

“—don’t care! You said knowledge or death! I went through your stupid trials, and you still never told me anything!” He jabbed a gloved finger into Kolivan’s chest, though it barely moved him. “What makes you think I would expect anything out of you now?”

Kolivan’s face remained as blank as his mask.

“You weren’t ready to hear the rest,” he said, low and even. “Nor was there time. Zarkon was the more pressing issue, and the knowledge that you were Galra seemed to dishearten you enough.”

“So what do I have to do now? Take a quiz? Learn the secret handshake? I’m sick of you and all your pointless rules!”

A flicker of movement off to the side. Keith’s eyes darted away, and up, towards the black lion’s cockpit.

Shiro was there, standing just inside, looking out at him through the forward panels.

He looked sad.

Kolivan was saying…something, but Keith didn’t listen. He tore himself away and kicked a piece of junk lying on the floor as hard as he could, sending it skittering across the metal.

The other members of Team Voltron stood back and out of the way as he stormed off, making no move to try and stop him.

It wouldn’t do any good. Keith had already prodded them – subtly, or as close as he could manage it – about whether or not they had been seeing Shiro’s ghost, too.

If they had, they were hiding it.

“I don’t believe in ghosts. Just miscategorized sensory input.”

“N-N-No? Why? Should I be seeing him? Aww man, please not the haunted castle again!”

“Keith, you okay, man? I think you’ve been working too hard.”

“I…wish I had.” Allura smiled gently, trying to be understanding. Things with Voltron had been running a lot smoother once she and Keith traded places. It turned out Allura was a natural with Red. “Sometimes I want to see him. Very much.”

She reached out and put a hand on his brow.

“Are you alright, Keith? We’re worried about you…”

Keith didn’t feel alright.

He was pretty sure he was losing his mind.

*****

The next time, Keith sought him out.

The castle was dark and quiet as he snuck out to the hangar. Moving carefully, making sure he was alone, ducking low along walls and checking intersections before he slipped through them. The sound of his boots felt overly loud on the metal flooring, but he wasn’t followed.

The black lion sat in its bay, still and ominous, like a forbidding obstacle directly in Keith’s path.

Keith raised his eyes to its passive face, his own narrowed into a glare. He kept his head raised, his steps quick and confident, as he approached and activated the controls that would allow him inside, climbing up into the cockpit.

If possible, it was even quieter inside.

A near-oppressive silence, reinforced by the lion’s thick black hull.

Keith touched the forward console to activate it, filling the cockpit with a soft purple light.

He sat down in the pilot’s chair, laying his hands to rest along the arms, palms down.

He was quiet for a moment, breathing to calm his heart. Digging his fingers in just a little along the smooth metal in preparation for what he was about to do.

Which may have been something very, very stupid.

He took a deep breath. Held it.

Then, out loud, just over the sound of a whisper: “Shiro?”

Nothing. The quiet stretched on.

“Shiro? Are you there…?”

No answer.

Keith leaned forward to look over the cockpit’s interior. He twisted around enough to see behind his chair, breath held as he dared to hope.

“Okay, Shiro. C’mon. I’m here. If you can hear me…”

Agonizing moments stretched endlessly on, filled with nothing but the sound of Keith’s own heartbeat.

Finally, he sagged, letting out his breath, and slumped down in his seat.

This was ridiculous.

“You know what happened to Shiro, don’t you?” he went on anyway, half hiding his face behind one hand as he glared at the heads-up display through the forward viewscreens, a glint of purple ambience reflected in his eyes.

There was the faintest rumble through the cockpit. Like a lion’s purr.

Keith tightened.

“Tell me.”

He waited, listening to the silence.

“Please…tell me.”

His voice was a whisper. He closed his eyes and relaxed into the chair, opening his senses to the feel of the lion around him. His connection wasn’t as strong as with Red – and nowhere near the level Shiro’s had been…maybe he didn’t want it to be…the black lion was still Shiro’s as far as Keith was concerned – but he could still feel one. Just like the one he’d felt with Blue that led him to her in the first place.

That felt like a lifetime ago.

Keith had a sense for all the lions. He didn’t know why – if it was due to his Galra heritage or some other factor – but he didn’t question it anymore. He’d stopped questioning a lot of things after Shiro disappeared, existence numbed to an automatic acceptance.

When several minutes passed and there was no response, Keith slammed both fists down on the arm rests, snarling.

“I know something happened! I know he’s not dead! I can feel it! Tell me where he is!”

The lion remained silent. Distant. Keith sagged forward in the chair and put his face in his hands, fingers pressing into his eyes until he saw stars.

“Please,” he said, his voice on the cusp of a broken sob. “I just…I need to know…”

Nothing.

“This is the second time he’s disappeared.” Keith tried to explain. Tried to appeal to whatever sense of connection they had, unknowing if the lion listened. Or even cared. “I didn’t…I didn’t get to say goodbye. Again.”

Keith remembered the funeral the Garrison held for Shiro back on Earth. A ceremony dedicated to his and the Holts’ memory. There weren’t any bodies, just a recitation of the motions meant to be a comfort for those left behind. A sense of closure for the mourning.

Neither Keith nor Pidge drew any comfort from the empty caskets.

And now it was happening again.

Keith could feel it. The loss. The emptiness. Like a void around him, pulling in all light. Confusing all sense of direction. He wouldn’t let himself become lost again. Keith was stronger now. He had the others to think about.

But it still hurt so damn much…

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he sobbed. Gross, ugly crying. The sort he could only allow himself when there was no one else around. No one but a detached machine to confide in. “We were supposed to go back to Earth together…he promised…he _promised_ …”

Shiro had promised other things. He’d promised to come back from Kerberos. He’d promised they would make things official. He’d promised they would get through this war and return to Earth and live out the rest of their boring existences growing old together. Cherishing every sunrise and laugh and wrinkle.

Now he was gone.

Again.

And Keith hadn’t even been able to say goodbye.

Keith cried. His heart felt like it had burst, and poured out of him in an unending torrent. There was no end to the grief he could feel. No bottom to the pool where his tears could finally dry out. The universe wasn’t a kind enough place to return Shiro to him twice, and their struggle against the Galra was far from over. If there was any end to it at all.

But they had no choice. They would have to continue on alone. Without him.

And Keith was nowhere near ready to do it.

“Keith…”

Keith snapped his head up, catching his breath, stilling his sobs as he strained to listen. Worried for a moment he’d misheard. Or imagined it. His heart pounded and his lungs screamed for oxygen when he didn’t allow himself to breathe. Black crept in on the edges of his vision, and he let his breath out in a sob at last, staggering for another.

He swallowed against the tightness in his throat. When he spoke again, it was careful, reaching out with a tentative, broken rasp.

“…Shiro?”

Lights flickered on the dashboard of the cockpit.

“Keith,” came the voice again, thin and slightly modulated. “I’m here.”

The sob that tore out of Keith then was one of relief. Sheer, utter, unbelievable relief. He stood up from the pilot’s seat and turned his eyes around the cockpit, hope gleaming in the crystalline light.

“Shiro—! Where? Where are you?”

Another flicker, and then his outline came into view. Fuzzy. Transparent. Glowing with a faint purple-blue light, like a hologram.

But it was Shiro.

Still in his black paladin armor. Still with his metal arm and nose scar and shock of white hair.

He smiled, exactly the way Keith remembered, and opened his arms.

“Keith. It’s me.”

“Shiro…”

Keith stared, his eyes wide, expression slack. The urge tugged at his body to go to him, to throw himself into Shiro’s arms and hold onto him like he would never let him go again, but…

Keith hesitated.

Something didn’t look quite right. None of the lights from the console reflected in Shiro’s eyes. His armor didn’t gleam. He looked somehow…separate from the world, radiating a light of his own.

“Are you…?”

Keith braced himself, tightening his hands at his sides.

“Are you dead?”

Shiro paused, broken out of his staring as well. He looked down at himself. At his hands.

“I…I don’t actually know,” he said, the lightness of wonder in his voice, which retained its tinny variation. “I don’t think so.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not really sure. The last thing I remember for certain is…fighting with Zarkon.”

“You disappeared,” said Keith, fighting to keep his voice steady. Calm. He wanted to run to him. Wanted to throw his arms around him. “It’s been _months_. We had no idea what happened to you.”

Shiro’s brows drew together, realizing. Or remembering.

“I remember,” he said, slowly, gaze distant as it looked back to the past. “I remember getting the bayard. We attacked Zarkon. All of us. All of us as one…”

Keith remembered that moment too. A moment when everything felt bright, when it felt like all of them – Pidge, Hunk, Lance, Shiro – saw through the same eyes. All of their thoughts lined up to focus on one goal. It was…

It was the unity they’d always strived for in their training. The team Voltron paladins were supposed to be.

And, just when they’d found that level of synchonicity, they lost one of them.

Suddenly Keith was overcome with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu: looking at Shiro, watching him struggle to remember something he had been through – something terrible – and finally returned to him from being gone. It hadn’t been a year, but any amount of time was too much.

“And then,” Shiro went on, still remembering, “after that, there was…something…like a shockwave hit me…” He put a hand to his forehead, frowning. “I was…somewhere else…”

An image flitted through Keith’s mind. He didn’t know if it came from Shiro or if it was a triggered memory: the starscape and inverted universe, where all the colors were bright and wrong.

“Keith.” Shiro refocused, looking to him. A smile like a delighted boy lit up his face.

It had been a long time since Keith had seen Shiro excited.

“The black lion…its secret power! Well, one of its powers…complete molecular transposition!”

“Yeah,” Keith mumbled. “We figured that much out.”

“That’s how I was able to grab Zarkon’s bayard! Voltron phased right through Zarkon’s armor, and—”

“ _Your_ bayard.”

“—my bayard. Keith, it was amazing!”

Keith didn’t say anything. He was quiet, looking at Shiro. Unimpressed. His posture tense and growing increasingly taut. Restrained. The hard look in his eyes sharpening to a razor’s edge the longer Shiro went on.

“And then…then everything felt so _connected.”_ Shiro gestured emphatically with his hands. “The next thing I knew, I was…I wasn’t…I was somewhere else. Keith, I think I…merged with my lion…”

The wonder didn’t leave his voice. He smiled as he spread his hands, eyes alight.

“It’s amazing, the things I’ve learned here. Well, not _here,_ but…it’s hard to explain…I think it took me awhile to remember who I was, but after that—oh, Slaav would have a field day…”

Keith took a swing at him.

The punch went right through, of course, and Keith staggered with the off tilt of his balance, catching himself on the rear wall of the cockpit. Shiro’s eyes went wide and he ducked back, flinching in instinctive reaction, staring after Keith in startlement and shock.

Keith bent double against the wall where he landed, shoulders jerking with barely-restrained sobs.

“So that’s it?” His voice cracked. Broke. He looked up at Shiro with the blue-hot flames of rage behind his eyes, tears catching the light like stars. “You’ve been here…the whole time…and you couldn’t let us know? Not even a word? Everyone thinks you’re dead! Again!”

“Keith…” Shiro’s expression wrenched in pain. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

“So you merged with your lion, or whatever. Unmerge! Come back!”

There, Shiro’s face fell in even more rueful sorrow. He didn’t have to say anything. Keith knew what that look meant.

Shiro said it anyway. Exactly what Keith didn’t want to hear.

“I’m sorry, Keith. I don’t…think I can.”

Keith shut his eyes tight. Tears burned behind them. The whole of his insides tightened. Everything felt like it was breaking.

“Keith…” Shiro tried to comfort, reaching out to him. “I’m more connected to my lion than ever—”

“I don’t care.” Keith sniffed. He dragged one arm across his face.

“I know more about Voltron than we ever thought poss—”

“I don’t care!”

“It will help in the fight against—”

“Shiro, will you stop thinking about the mission?!” Keith rounded on him, shouting, loud in the confined space of the cockpit. “For once in your damned life...! I don’t care. I don’t care about any of that. I want you back! I want you here with me!”

That look again. One of pity and pain. Keith hated it. Hated what it meant.

He wanted to rage. He wanted to hit something – hit _him_ – but he couldn’t even do that.

“Keith…I’m sorry…but, I think, this is the way it has to be…”

“What about me?”

“You can lead Voltron. I know you can.”

“I don’t want to. Not without you.”

Keith knew he was being selfish. Throwing a tantrum like a petulant child. He’d yelled at Pidge once for putting the life of individual people over the rest of the entire galaxy, and now here he was, ready to do it himself.

Not the way a paladin of Voltron – let alone a leader – was supposed to behave.

“I’ll be right here beside you,” Shiro whispered. “Every step of the way.”

“Not the way I want you to.”

Keith cried openly now, no longer making the effort to try and hide it. He couldn’t understand… Maybe Shiro had reached a higher level of existence or merged into another plane or whatever, but why did he seem so distant? Had he forgotten about them? About…what they had? Maybe physicality wasn’t a thing wherever Shiro was now, but…what about the rest? The emotions? What they meant to each other…?

Keith rubbed hard at his eyes.

“You can’t do this to me, Shiro,” he growled, hitching a breath. “Not again. This is the second time you’ve disappeared. The second time I haven’t been able to bury you.” His eyes flashed sharp in the dim light. Cutting. “I can’t go through that hell again. I can’t. I won’t!”

Shiro…just looked at him. Sad again.

His voice changed. Became more real.

“Keith…”

Then, a pair of arms – strong and solid and soft as a gentle touch – came around him. Keith felt himself pulled in against a solid chest. He felt Shiro’s warmth surround him. Lips and a breath touched his hair.

Keith clenched his eyes shut tight and held on, grasping Shiro in his arms as hard as he could. Muffling sobbing breaths against the hard press of his armor.

“I’ll always be with you,” Shiro whispered, a sentiment Keith heard not only in his voice, but reverberant through his heart.

It didn’t make the pain go away.

“Shiro…”

Then he faded by degrees, became less and less solid until he disappeared from sight. Keith staggered forward when he was left holding nothing but empty air, the last remnants of Shiro’s light trailing away like particles of dust.

“Shiro…Shiro—!”

Nothing. He was alone again.

Keith ran to the forward console. He grabbed his bayard and formed a blade to smash it against the paneling, over and over again, making no mark in the metal except for a few small scrapes.

“Give him back! _Give him back!”_

The blade shattered, and he stumbled back, the remnant of the grip heavy in his hand. The vibrations numbing all the way up his arm.

Keith dropped the bayard to the floor.

He sank down to his knees, held himself, and cried.


End file.
